Darkstar Rising

Two Moon Bay

The City of Two Moon Bay is a bustling city with an average adult resident population of around 23,000. With the ships docked at the port and the number of visiting merchants the actual population is closer to 26,000. Two Moon Bay is the seat of the barony of Harbare. It has been growing steadily since it’s founding and is now starting to become a serious regional power. The city was founded by the Van Haoukel family close to 200 years ago and has prospered under their rule. The overall population enjoys a quality of life that is very high compared to people in the rest of the world. The general feeling among the population is a sense of comfort and well being that they tend to attribute to the Van Haoukel family, the city Aldermen, and their semi-democratic system of government.

The city itself is divided up into wards. These wards are basically different building phases the city went through throughout it’s growth. About half of the wards were built up during the founding years of the city and the rest were built up over the following decades. Each ward has a specific cultural flavor and generally houses specific services and social/racial strata of the population. Every 4 years the citizens of the city vote to elect Aldermen to the city council. The council holds court with The Baron once a month to discuss matters that directly effect the city and it’s citizens. The Aldermen are basically the managers of the various wards and they are also responsible for collecting the taxes, and dealing with public matters in the interest of the citizens. There are also Aldermen in each of the other towns of The Barony.

The city is policed by a group of Watchmen or Constables as they are sometimes called.
The chief of this city defense force is Thurgood Gellan. He is a human paladin of Pelor and is known as a good man with impeccable moral character. Each ward has between 5-25 constables assigned to it. These constables patrol their ward in 8 hour shifts, but they can all be summoned to deal with a serious threat of needed via a series of magical stones that they all carry. The stones allow the constables to send out a distress signal and pinpoint each others location anywhere withing 5 miles of the city. The majority of the Watchmen are good men, but like any police force there are always a couple of bad apples. Any accusations of wrong doing by the city watch would be thoroughly investigated by Chief Gellan.

The city itself sits on the southern edge of the Bay, tucked behind a dangerous outcropping of rocky islands known as The Teeth, with a lighthouse on the northwestern edge of the city to signal ships of the dangerous point. This lighthouse is the home of The Lamplighters Guild.
Two Moon Bay has 2 very large open air markets and also many scattered shops that contain every type of mundane item. The city, like the barony makes most of it’s money from the export of salt, timber, and fish. There is also a sizable portion of income from the construction of sailing vessels and siege equipment.

The city also boasts many dealers of various manufactured goods. This includes both magical and mundane conveyance, magical and alchemical items, weaponry, wines, spirits, furniture, textiles, and hides.

Two Moon Bay is ringed by agricultural endeavors of all stripe, but this agriculture is generally consumed within the barony and for the most part only the vintners are starting to see any revenue from exports. The city also has two very large salt mines just outside of the city walls to the South and others scattered throughout the barony. These mines are where the majority of the baronies revenue comes from. Harbare salt from the Western Salt Co. is known throughout the world as the finest salt for cooking, pickling, and curing food. This commodity is traded in the open air markets throughout the city and the barony collects a small tax on every transaction and the profits go to the Van Haoukel family directly.
The salt has a slight pink color, and has been described as having a unique mineral flavor that enhances the taste of foods. 3 out of 4 tables in the civilized world have salt that originated in these mines on them.

The Baron’s keep does not lie within the city limits but south about 1/2 a mile east atop a very defensible hill top near the sea. This was done for tactical reasons to force two fronts on any invading force, and to give a retreat position for the militia. For more information on The Keep, or the Baron see the Harbare section of the Wiki.

The cities cemetery is just outside of the western wall. It was placed here after a mild zombie outbreak 100 years ago forced the exhumation of all the bodies in the old cemetery that was in town. The old cemetery would have been located in White Parish had this not happened, but since the exhumation, no undead has been found in the city.

There are freshwater stock ponds to the south scattered through out the agricultural land. These are a relatively new addition to the barony, mainly to feed a growing population with limited livestock.

There are a series of canals that feed freshwater into the city and also irrigate the outlying farms. As well as ample water supply from various wells that have been dug throughout the city.

The city is famous for two things really. The salted and smoked fish that it produces with the local Harbare salt and exotic hardwoods, and the fantastic system of magical lamps and beacons that illuminates this otherwise dark and dreary coastline. Two Moon Bay literally comes alive at night, illuminated by countless colored lanterns. They are a point of pride in the city and they draw people from leagues away to view the city from one of the neighboring hillsides at night. The lamps were originally built by the elves of Syltira’li, but the knowledge of the construction has been handed down to local artisans over the years, and the lamps are available for purchase at many shops in the city. Many of the lamps are very ornate, quite expensive, and are made with stained glass images depicting the great deeds of former residents of the city, the gods, or fantastical creatures.